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This reading requires an adherence to some of those newfangled statistics, but it nevertheless reinforces what a lot of us already thought: WVU hasn’t been these past few seasons what it was in the seasons before those.
That said, the numbers also suggest the Mountaineers weren’t that bad in 2012 and they’re going to be an interesting case for the 2013 season.
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“I’m familiar with the offense and I just felt comfortable at West Virginia,” Sims said during his visit with the Mountaineers staff.
“I’m familiar with their schemes and what they have going.”
Sims said he was also considering UCLA before settling on West Virginia.
“It feels real good to make this decision,” Sims said. “It’s the next step in my life.
“I just want to hurry up and get back to what I do.”
In nine games last season for Houston Sims rushed for 851 yards and 11 touchdowns, averaging six yards per carry.
He was also fourth on the team in receiving with 37 catches for 373 yards and three touchdowns.
Low-risk situation for the Mountaineers in that if it doesn’t work, it only lasts a year anyway. There’s high potential for rewards, too, because Sims is a very good back and he’ll help the offense.
This is where you say, “Yeah, we’re really going to run the ball this year.” And this is where I say, “Are you nuts?”
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The last stop on our five-part series this week about how technology is being discovered, acquired and applied at WVU was at Hawley Field and with Randy Mazey. He coaches baseball, of course, and when you think about what I’ve tried to make you think about this week and you consider statistics and scouring and advanced scouting, you probably think “Baseball!” Or just “Baseball.” I’m not sure.
I read Moneyball before I saw “Moneyball” and I see defenses shift when a batter comes to the plate and barely move when that batter hits right into the scouting report. I’ve see Fox and ESPN show hot zones and cold zones in the nine segments of the strike zone. Baseball is numbers and expected outcomes and sabermetrics.
“I’m probably going to answer your question with my next question,” Mazey said. “What is sabermetrics?”
He’s not being philosophical. He’s being serious. Numbers are for scoreboards, putouts and the backs of jerseys.
“We’re not like pro baseball, which picks and chooses its players and pays certain guys whatever he wants so you can get him,” Mazey said. “When we go recruit, we identify good players. We get some of them and we don’t get some of them. But it’s not like I can take the guys who have a good OBPSPB or whatever you call that.”
OBPSPB! Well, that is that. It didn’t end the conversation or, in truth, the series. We decided to put this story at the end this time because it proves that the examples from volleyball, basketball, gymnastics and soccer are not required. They’re accessories and supplements, but you can win without them. And many choose to do that.
Mazey has worked with expensive video equipment before, but he prefers to see players working with tees and fungo bats and getting in extra work with a coach on the side. He values trust over technology and, let’s be honest, no one here is complaining.
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From the time Marlon LeBlanc stepped on campus through the year WVU played out its existence in the Big East, the Mountaineers were 4-1-1 against UConn, which has the best program in the conference. WVU outscored the Huskies 7-2 with five clean sheets, that after scoring seven goals total and going 1-11-2 to start the series.
Now, some of that was talent. The Mountaineers didn’t have a lot when they were losing and they got a lot better toward the end of the regime to precede LeBlanc’s and then immediately after LeBlanc arrived.
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What we suspected a while ago when Team Raese lawyered up, a lawsuit was filed Wednesday that says, among so many things, that WVU has been “corrupted by a cadre of self-interested, self-dealing individuals who view West Virginia University and its Foundation not as a vehicle for higher education and the betterment of West Virginia and its citizens, but instead as an opportunity for personal profit.”
That’s a whale of a starting point, and that was literally the starting point, but it goes on. And on. It’s 204 pages long. The suit aims at WVU’s Foundation and Board of Governors, Bray Cary and his West Virginia Media, Oliver Luck, Drew Payne, Dave Alvarez, Richard and Ralph Ballard and Jim Clements.
The university president is treated harshly because, the suit alleges, he “has allowed this to happen, failing to discharge his fiduciary obligations as President, failing to exercise reasonable diligence and control over Defender Luck and other Insider Defendants’ actions, and exposing WVU and its Foundation to unnecessary expense, embarrassment and ridicule.”
So Team Raese states it is an “aggrieved bidder of WVU’s third-tier media rights” and seeks to recover damages and to “enjoin the Insider Defendants from further using their influence to the detriment of WVU, the Foundation, and the citizens of West Virginia.” The overall goal is to “vindicate the rights of West Virginia and its citizens who have been injured by the Insider Defendants’ unlawful actions.”
It all sounds so noble, especially as the suit alleges shady dealings with West Virginia Media and the football and basketball scoreboards, and Team Raese merely asks for money to cover attorney’s fees. Anything beyond that will go to WVU Children’s Hospital.
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WVU gymnast Amanda Carpenter was the Pennsylvania all-around champion as a high school sophomore in 2008, but didn’t have a lot of attention after that. She’s been productive for the Mountaineers, especially on the balance beam, a rather particular apparatus that programs seek performers on every season.
“We didn’t know anything about her,” Doak said. “Turns out she was injured and hadn’t competed in a year. We went back and found video of her and all of a sudden it was, ‘Wow, who is this kid?'”
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So Red Panda was on “America’s Got Talent” last night because Red Panda. She killed. I didn’t even see it, but I know she killed.
As I looked around for a clip of the performance, I saw this guest list from Wednesday’s “LIVE With Kelly & Michael” … and this is outrageous.
Do you see that? As part of its Totem show, Cirque du Soleil has an act of people riding unicycles and flipping bowls on their heads. It is called — and I kid you not — “Unicycles and Bowls.” Not even Criss Angel can believe this, Cirque.
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This is Wellington Smith at work and you get the idea, rather vividly, that it’s a fun place to work. He is now the director of operations for basketball marketing at GameChanger.
GameChanger is another one of the cutting edge statistic and scouting applications rising in popularity, if not necessity, across the country now. It’s the focus as the second part of this week’s five-part series.
I know people who have attended clinics that featured GameChanger panels — and one including Smith — and they have been blown away by how an iPad has, as Smith says, “totally revolutionized those numbers and the way people keep stats.”
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Sheesh, there’s still room in the 2013 class and a lot of room in the 2014 class, but WVU’s football team is getting to work on 2015.
Stone Wolfley — say it twice, it’s good — was offered a scholarship and accepted over the weekend. He’s the first for 2015 and the thinking at his high school is the Morgantown High tight end/defensive end will develop into a very good prospect across time.
And what of that name? Well, apart from the commendable Stone, it’s also another Wolfley. Stone’s father is Dale, who played offensive line at WVU and is now the coordinator of player relations for the Mountaineers. Dale’s brother Ron was a running back at WVU who had the school’s most celebrated fake punt before Phil Brady. He also knows Tevita.
So that’s not a bad start for 2015, but, boy, could it get better.
New candidate for the all-name team is 2015 DL Lion King Conaway from Southfield.
